MY SWEET LAND
(DOC NYC, the USA’s largest documentary film festival, runs November 13 through December 1 (in-person and online) for its 15th edition. Check out Chris Reed’s movie review of My Sweet Land. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
The cost of war is always borne the most by civilians, who merely want to live their lives in peace. Territorial disputes are often the worst kind of conflict, so convinced are both sides of their deep historical ties to the area. In My Sweet Land, from director Sareen Hairabedian (making her feature debut), the region in dispute is Nagorno-Karabakh. From the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s until 2023, it was controlled by ethnic Armenians. Since then, it has gone to Azerbaijan. It’s a ping-pong world.
Hairabedian constructs her documentary through a series of vignettes from different time periods, jumping back and forth to highlight the ongoing trauma that lingers in the memories of local residents. Artsakh is what they call Nagorno-Karabakh, and it is their home. But the issues of sovereignty are decided by those with guns.
The movie’s title cards appear in both English and Armenian, placing the viewer firmly in the one camp. Beyond the Russian peacekeepers we occasionally see, there is no attempt to explore the geopolitics of the various ownership claims. This is a movie about the Armenians of Artsakh, and the toll of battle they constantly endure.
As such, we spend much of our time in the company of 11-year-old Vrej and his family. His grandmother recalls many of the terrors of preceding decades, prepared for more to come. And her worries come to pass in 2020, when Azerbaijan launches another offensive. Following footage of happy children at play, the subsequent explosions hit more than just physically hard.
Even more distressing is watching the ensuing military drills, as those same children don gear and carry weapons, training to be future soldiers. The realities of their situation, potentially homeless and determined to fight back, is vividly captured in these images of innocence lost. This is the legacy of endless crusades.
As a work of observational filmmaking where the goal is to show the bloody truth of historical enmity, My Sweet Land proves powerful. We can’t help but have a visceral reaction to the footage. Ordinary people are no match for tanks and bombs.
Where the movie falls short is in explaining the ultimate causes of the struggle. There is onscreen text that lays out some of the facts, but it remains unclear, to those without previous knowledge of the parties involved, why Artsakh is coveted as it is. But that’s Hairabedian’s agenda. She is here to condemn violence, and in that she more than succeeds.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
2024 Doc NYC; Sareen Hairabedian; My Sweet Land
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